Tender Betrayal

by Rosanne Bittner

  She stopped her work again, rubbing gently at a potato, smelling its earthy scent. Simple things. There was a time when Lee also knew how to find joy in simple things, when they picnicked together, when he taught Joey how to find snails. Her throat tightened and her eyes teared at the memory, which had struck her unexpectedly, surprising her with its vividness. How long had it been since she thought about Lee Jeffreys? When was it she had given up secretly hoping he would come looking for her, no matter how much she told others she didn’t care anymore?

  It was 1859, wasn’t it…that summer she spent in Connecticut? Seven years ago! She could sing then, and people would sit and listen in near rapture to her voice. She touched the scar on her throat, tears brimming in her eyes, remembering Lee sitting in the audience watching her that first night, remembering how he had stood up for her when Cу Jordan insulted her, remembering that first warm, wonderful kiss. He was the only man who had ever made her feel like a real woman, who knew how to bring out the brazen passion that now lay sleeping in her soul. No other man could awaken it. No one but Lee, and so it lay sleeping. She had not seen him or heard from him in over four years.

  Should she even be giving Lee fond thoughts? Wasn’t it men like Lee who were responsible for her being here in this potato field, her skin burned brown, her hands so dirty she might never get them clean again? Wasn’t it men like Lee who were responsible for what had happened to Brennan Manor, for her attack and the loss of her voice…for Joey’s death?

  It’s every man’s fault, Elijah had told her. South same as the North. Every man who thought he was right and wanted to fight for it. We are all to blame, the South for refusin’ to give up slavery and for startin’ the whole thing; the North for thinkin’ they had to teach the South a lesson; and even us Negroes, for lettin’ ourselves be stuck in slavery for so long. We was ignorant and afraid. Now, the more we learn and work hard to be on our own, the more we know we gonna make it okay, and life will be better for the little ones like Joey.

  She stopped digging then when several wagons of Negroes drove past the potato field and into their little village, where a wooden sign that read Brennan, Kansas, Population 72, hung between two posts on the dirt road that led into town. Audra watched Wilena and Joseph walk up to talk to some of those who stopped near the field, and then Joseph turned and signaled her and others to come out of the potato field. Audra dropped her fork and what potatoes she had collected and hurried toward the newcomers, stepping over other rows of potatoes. When she reached the procession of wagons, she noticed some of the Negro women crying. A few others just stared at her in surprise at seeing a white woman with red hair among them.

  “We got trouble,” Joseph told Audra. “These people are from a settlement east of here. They gathered their belongin’s and run off on account of a band of white men that’s been goin’ around raidin’ Negro camps, killin’ and rapin’ and destroyin’ homes and crops. They ride in, usually at night, wearin’ white hoods, settin’ fires.”

  Audra felt her stomach turn. “Do they think they’ll come here?”

  “They say these men been goin’ around findin’ all the Negro settlements they can. This man here says they’re a bunch of outlaws from the South, all mad about Negroes bein’ able to come out here and settle on their own. They’re just out to make trouble for Negroes anyplace they can. I expect they’ll find us soon enough.”

  “But…we can defend ourselves if we stick together,” Wilena put in. “There must be forty people here. If they want to stay in Brennan, we’ll be over a hundred strong.”

  “That’s includin’ children,” Joseph reminded her. “You’re talkin’ maybe about seventy adults, and a lot of them is women. On top of that, we need guns, and we can’t afford them.”

  Southern boys, Audra thought. Now that they were through with trouble from the Yankees, it was their own kind who would make life miserable for them. Yes, Elijah was right. Everybody was to blame for this war, and for some the war was still not over. “We have some guns,” she spoke up.

  “Yeah, and mos’ of these men don’t know how to use them very good. It’s one thing shootin’ at a rabbit or a deer standin’ still in the woods. It’s another to shoot at a man chargin’ at you on a horse, especially when he’s shootin’ back!”

  Audra looked out at the horizon, which in Kansas seemed endless. “They aren’t going to chase us out, Joseph. We won’t let them. We’ll pray and we’ll fight. God has been with us so far. He won’t desert us now.” She looked up at the man. “Have some of the others help these people settle in. We have to get the potatoes dug so we can have them to sell to travelers. And we still have corn to pick, you know. First things first. We have crops to get in if we want to get through another winter.”

  Joseph nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’ll hold a meeting tonight to decide how we can defend ourselves if these hoodlums come to Brennan.” Audra turned and walked back to her potato row, and Joseph watched her for a moment, then grinned at Wilena. “She still has a way of bossin’ us around, don’t she?”

  Wilena just laughed. “It’s in her blood, Joseph, but that’s good. She’s helped us a lot, takin’ charge like she has.”

  “Who is that woman?” one of the newcomers asked.

  “She’s Audra Brennan,” Wilena answered. “There was a time when she was one of the richest ladies in Louisiana, and a proud, bossy little thing she was, too.” She looked at the Negro man who had brought them the news about the raiders. “Welcome to Brennan. You take your folks on into town, and people there will help you. God is on our side, mister. He’ll help us through this.”

  The man tipped his hat and turned to guide the oxen that pulled his wagon. Wilena looked up at her husband. “We best get the potatoes dug like Miss Audra says. We can meet tonight and decide what to do about them outlaws. Seems this war ain’t really over yet, don’t it? Some folks seem bent on keepin’ it goin’, one way or another.”

  “Seems so.” He looked out at Audra. “One thing is sure. If them men come, we got to hide her. They see a white woman livin’ among us, it’ll be worse for her than us.”

  “I agree,” Wilena answered. “Why can’t they jus’ leave us alone and let us live in peace? We ain’t doin’ nothin’ to nobody.”

  “We’re free niggers doin’ good on our own. That’s what they don’t like.”

  Joseph left her and returned to his work. Wilena watched Audra for a moment longer, then looked up at the clouds. “Please, Lord, don’t let them men find us. Keep us safe, and especially keep Miss Audra safe. She’s a good woman. Jus’ let this war be over for all of us, for once and for all.”

  Wilena returned to her own work, but they all kept stopping to gaze at the eastern horizon, expecting at any moment to see a gang of men wearing white hoods riding down on their little town.

  Lee opened his eyes to watch a woman fussing with a drapery she could not get open. She looked familiar, but he could not quite place her. Somewhere in the distance he heard someone playing a piano. It was lovely music, and it seemed to drift on a gentle breeze that came in a side window. The smell in that air was familiar, the smell of dry autumn, Indian summer. There was another smell mixed with it…the sea. He heard the cry of a sea gull.

  How long had it been since he heard the sea gulls? He looked around the familiar room, his old room at Maple Shadows! Why, this was the very room where he’d made love to Audra for the first time, wasn’t it? This was the room where he’d come searching for something that had belonged to her and had found the song. How in God’s name had he gotten from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to his old family summer home in Connecticut? And who was playing the piano? Had he died and was he with his mother now? And who was the woman fixing the draperies?

  “Audra?” he spoke.

  The woman turned as though startled. “Lee! My God, you spoke!” She stepped down from a chair and hurried over to his bed. “Lee, do you know who I am?”

  He studied her a moment. Why was it
so difficult to place her? Yes, she did look familiar…David’s wife? No. Carl’s.

  “Beverly?”

  She smiled. “Yes! Oh, Lee!” She touched his hair. “We wondered if you would ever come out of this! Lie still. I’m so glad Carl happens to be here! He came up for a week.”

  She left the room, and Lee looked around, totally confused. He was apparently alive, but how did he get here? What did she mean by wondering if he would ever come out of this? He looked out the window again, saw the deep colors of the trees outside. It was apparently one of those rare autumn days when it was warm as summer outside. He could hear the waves on the beach below. However he had gotten here, apparently not too much time had passed since he’d been to Baton Rouge. He could still find Audra by spring at least.

  Audra! She seemed to fill this room. Oh, how happy they had been here that summer! He and Audra and…Joey. Oh, yes, Joey. He’d killed him, hadn’t he? When was that? It was so hard to remember little things, like dates. When had he gone to Baton Rouge? September, wasn’t it? September of sixty-five. It must still be roughly that time from the look of the trees outside. He scrambled to remember how he might have landed here in bed. He could vaguely see a man with glasses, telling him Audra had gone to Kansas. He was going to go after her when something had hit him in the head. That was all he remembered.

  However he had gotten here, it felt good. He liked to imagine it was his mother playing the piano downstairs. How nice it would be if somehow he had gone back in time, and both his mother and Audra would come into the room, smiles on their beautiful faces—but that couldn’t be, could it? No, his mother was dead. Even his father…oh, how it hurt to think of it. So much had been left unsaid. So much. Now the man lay buried out there beside his mother. He had never even had the chance to visit his grave. When he first came back from the war, he had gone only to visit Carl, then Bennett James.

  The war…it had changed so many people’s lives. How had it changed Audra’s? Where was she now? How was she? Someone came into the room and leaned over him. “Carl?” Why were there tears in his brother’s eyes?

  “Lee! My God! How do you feel? Can you move?”

  Move? Why in hell shouldn’t he be able to move? He flexed his hands, raised his arms. Weak, he was so weak. He looked at his arms, noticed they were terribly thin! “Carl, what’s happened? How did I get here?” He realized it was even an effort to talk.

  Carl pulled up a chair, and his wife Beverly stood behind him. “Do you remember anything about what happened?”

  Lee looked around the room again. “Just…I went to Baton Rouge to find Audra. She’s gone to Kansas. I…have to find her.”

  Carl put a hand on his arm. “Not for a while, Lee. It’s going to take you a long time to regain your strength. The doctor said that if you ever came around, you’d probably have to learn to walk all over again, after being immobile for so long. We’ve exercised your limbs as much as we could, just to work your muscles every day.”

  “I don’t…understand. A couple of weeks shouldn’t…make much difference.”

  Carl sighed, grave concern in his eyes. “Lee, some young rebels beat you senseless down in Baton Rouge. You were pretty broken up, but your bones have mended by now. When it first happened and they found your identification, the doctor down there managed to find me and told me to come get you and your belongings because you were unconscious, and he didn’t know how long you’d be that way. By the time I reached you to bring you home, you were awake enough to eat and drink, but you just stared most of the time, didn’t move, didn’t know who we were, never spoke. We were beginning to think you’d be like that for years, alive but not alive.” He squeezed his arm. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you talking, to know you remember us. We’ve managed to get soup and water down your throat, but that’s it. You’ve lost a lot of weight, and it’s going to take you a long time to get back to normal.”

  Lee tried to put his hand to his head, but he couldn’t get it that far. Alarm began to move through him when he realized he couldn’t possibly be this weak and thin after only a couple of weeks. “How long have I been this way?”

  Carl closed his eyes for a moment, keeping a grip on his arm. “Lee, it’s been a year. It’s October, eighteen sixty-six.”

  Something close to horror swept through Lee’s blood. A year! That couldn’t be possible! Audra! My God, a whole year! What about his promise to Joey? What had happened to Audra by now? “That can’t be,” he said, feeling his voice growing weaker already. “I have to…go find Audra. I have to go to Kansas!” He tried to rise, but he had absolutely no strength, not even enough to raise his head. “My God!” Tears welled in his eyes. “A year!”

  “Lee, just be glad you came around without loss of memory and without being paralyzed. The doctor wasn’t sure just what would happen if you ever fully regained consciousness. The biggest damage was a blow to the head from a brick. There isn’t much doctors know about injuries like that. All a person can do is wait and see. Just thank God you’re alert. You were beginning to fail fast from poor nourishment. We weren’t sure how much longer you’d live. I had you brought here to Maple Shadows because I knew how much you loved it here. I thought maybe it would help you recover to be someplace familiar, someplace Mother loved. Beverly moved up here with the kids to take care of you.”

  Lee closed his eyes against tears, feeling weak and vulnerable and horribly depressed. How ironic that his gravest injury had come after the war. “I have to get my strength back. I have to go to Kansas,” he repeated.

  “That’s going to take time, Lee,” Beverly told him. “The doctor said that if and when you came around, you would have to start eating solid foods very gradually. Your whole system has been shut down. Your stomach will hardly know what to do with solid food at first. And you’re going to need help in learning to walk again. It will take months.”

  “No.” Lee jerked in a sob, hating this ridiculous need to cry but unable to stop it. “I don’t…have months. I have to…go to Kansas.”

  Carl bent over him, grasping his bony shoulders. “You will go, Lee. But not right away. I’m going to send for the doctor, and I’ll bring in the best specialists from New York to work with you and help you get back your strength. A lot of people are going to be damn happy just to know you’re conscious and haven’t lost your memory. You remember Bennett James, don’t you?”

  Lee sniffed back more tears and breathed deeply for self-control. Carl took a clean handkerchief from his suit jacket and wiped his tears with it.

  “Yeah, sure I remember Bennett.”

  “Well, he contacts Beverly weekly by wire, wanting to know if you’re awake yet. I expect he’ll be coming up here to see you real soon. Jeannie’s been staying here off and on, too. Do you remember who Jeannie is?”

  “David’s wife.”

  “She’s met another man. She’s getting married soon, but she’s been staying here a couple weeks at a time to relieve Beverly. It’s been quite a project taking care of you, but we all love you.”

  “My God,” Lee groaned. “I’ve…put all of you out…haven’t I?”

  Carl smiled through tears. “No. You gave us reason to come up here and have some time together. I was becoming just like Father, putting too much of myself into the business and not paying enough attention to my family. Your being here has made us spend more time here ourselves. It’s actually been good for us. Maybe this is Mother’s way of getting us back together. We’re all that’s left of the family, and I’m not going to let Maple Shadows sit empty anymore, Lee. I know it belongs to you now, but when you can’t be here, I’ll make sure it’s opened every summer. Mom would want that. Hell, the house had been lived in all year. We had a hell of a winter, snowed in part of the time, but the kids loved it.”

  Lee took hold of the handkerchief and finally managed to get it to his nose. “Who’s playing the piano?”

  “That’s our daughter Nichole,” Beverly answered. “She’s sixteen now. She’s be
en taking lessons for years. I think she’s inherited some of her grandmother’s talent, don’t you?”

  Lee listened to the beautiful playing. He could see his mother so vividly, and he could see Audra standing by that piano, singing in that beautiful voice no one could match. “Yes,” he answered. “That’s good. Mother would like that.”

  “She even looks like our mother,” Carl told him. He touched Lee’s hair. “Hey, little brother, you’re going to make it. Cooperate with the doctor and the specialists, and you’ll be back to full strength sooner than you think. You can go find that southern belle that you’ve been after for so many years, and maybe you can finally be together. I just want you to know that we’ll welcome her this time. It’s time for the war and the hatred to be over, and it’s time for you to be married and settled and happy.”

  Lee thought how he wasn’t sure that would happen, once he told Audra the truth about Joey. So much had happened that would cause Audra to hate him that they might never again be able to find that sweet love and exotic passion they had once shared. She could even have remarried by now, maybe left the Negroes and gone on to Denver or some other new place to start over. Audra! Every day counted, and he couldn’t do more than raise his hand to his face.

  “Get those…specialists…soon as you can,” he told Carl. He looked up at Beverly. “Thank you. How can I…ever repay you…for what you’ve done?”

  She smiled. “Just seeing you awake and alert is repayment enough. The day you’re able to walk out of here and get on a horse and go to Kansas will just be the icing on the cake.”